Judges and lawyers within the American legal system, as well as many others across the globe, are continually researching an ever-expanding body of legislation and judicial opinions to assist them understanding and resolving new or potential disputes. To facilitate this research, companies, such as West Publishing Company of St. Paul, Minn. (doing business as Thomson West), collect legal statutes, judicial opinions, law articles, and other legal and non-legal materials and make these available electronically over a computer network, through the Westlaw™ online research system. (Westlaw is a trademark licensed to Thomson West.)
At least one problem the present inventor recognized with this powerful system as well as other online research systems is that their valuable functionality is highly segregated from the functionality of other computer applications. For instance, legal researchers typically use results of their online legal research as part of a larger process of producing documents, such as legal briefs and memorandum. However, systems, such as the Westlaw system, are functionally separated from popular word processing applications, such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect, that are used for creating these documents. This means that users have to make awkward shifts from application window to application window, often cutting and pasting information from the word processor to the browser and vice versa to conduct their legal research and writing.
Accordingly, the present inventor has recognized at least a need for integrating the powerful functionality of systems, such as Westlaw, with other applications, such as word processors.